Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can't really set up a hundred-watt stack and blast -- the neighbors get pissed off. I've always had that problem, actually [laughs]. So usually I work 'em out on acoustic.

Was there a germ of a concept that generated this album? I imagine it was more of a creative move than a business decision.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I started a solo career prob'ly pretty late in the day, possibly. Y'know, this album was like the first projected element of that, and I feel that that's the best way to do it, is the way that it was done . And then, each album that I do is gonna be different, hopefully. So this was just like ... it gave a taste of the different guitar styles that I do. One thing I should've done, maybe, was a fingerstyle. But there we are.

There 's a knock at the door, and Page opens it. A bellman hands the guitarist a bag with a Burger King logo -- an incongruous sight in the ritzy Four Seasons Hotel. Page brings his burgers and fries back to the table.

Lunch?

Well, yeah, but we'll continue.

Burger King? How unpretentious.

Keep it off the record [laughs]!

I'm not promising anything. Go ahead and eat.

Nahhh, let 's carry on, I can't think about that.

If you insist. You originally conceived Outrider as a double album, then realized it would be too draining and time-consuming. When did you decide you had a finished album?

When I finished mixing it, really.

But you recorded a lot more basic tracks than you wound up using. What led you to choose the particular tracks that you did?

As I said before, it gives a spectrum of the playing -- what I do, from rock 'n' roll to acoustic and blues.

You said before that you began your solo career late in the game.

Late in the day, I said, not "game." Late in the day.

I stand corrected. At any rate, from this vantage point, do you see your career as a continuous evolutionary process or as a distinct series of stages –- the session years, the Yardbirds, establishing Zeppelin, latter-day Zeppelin --

The Firm, etcetera, etcetera.

Right. Are they separate pieces, or is it all this organic thing?

Yeah , possibly [laughs].

Yeah what? The latter?

The latter, yeah. It's all part and parcel, isn't it? Every album that I've attempted, I suppose, has been different -- it's bound to be.

But it's all connected by your artistry, from the spontaneity of Led Zeppelin to the layering of Outrider.

From the first Zeppelin album, there's obviously still that [layering] there; it's just that there's been more facilities available through the years. The first album was done on eight-track, then going to sixteen and all the rest of it.

Although there have been great technological leaps, though , you're still using the same vintage guitars, amps and effects you've always used.

Well, apart from the guitar synth, 'cause I've been using that. It doesn't track very well on the low strings, the lower down you go. The pitch-to-voltage thing is a bit suspect on them. But I suppose that's the difficulty of trying to make something new. I haven't tried, for instance, the new Casio one. The SynthAxe looked rather ...

You've tried one?

Well, I had a look at it [laughs]. But I mean, the development of [the guitar synth] now, with the MIDI system, is pretty good.

Have you tried a Bradshaw rig?

No, no. I've heard of them, though -- since I've been here, actually. What is that, then?

It's this compendium of effects, all MIDI'd to a pedalboard and housed in a single stack. Eddie Van Halen has one, although he claims to hardly ever use it. In fact, he claims to hardly ever use any effects; he's sort of a purist like you are-if you 'll accept that characterization.

Yeah. Well, he's got an incredible technique.

And like you, he's got a studio in his home -- right next to it, anyway. When you're in that sort of situation, do you have to impose a kind of discipline on yourself -- a way to incorporate your work into the context of your home life?